DISENCHANTED with politicians?Suffering from Westminster Coalition tristesse? Not looking forward to going through the election routine all over again for Holyrood in May? My advice is: don’t get apathetic, get bolshie. That’s not bolshie as in left-wing or radical but as in rebellious and difficult to manage. Being bolshie is a valued Scottish political and social trait.We are about to enter a six-week window when politicians will pretend to listen to what voters have to say. Some of those standing for the Scottish Parliament will actually pay attention. But there may be little in the way of dialogue.There is growing public indifference born of disappointment with the quality of representation provided by our elected members. Do you think most MPs are in it just for the ...
meryl - 14 months agoThere was a time in Britain and other Commonwealth countries when the place to be for anyone interested in shaping, or at least influencing, public policy was on the floor of a political party convention. This is not a recognizable model today.Political parties neither offer voters a meaningful opportunity for involvement in the policymaking process, nor do they generate policy alternatives for those elected to office. It is no exaggeration that political parties have lost their soul to image-driven politics and have, in the process, lost their ability to attract members. The combined membership of the three main political parties in Britain has fallen from 3.5m in the 1950s to about 540,000 today. In addition, the parties are failing to attract a younger generation of activists. The same ...
meryl - 14 months agoBritain’s budget deficit in October was the worst for the month since records began in 1993 as the recession destroyed tax revenue and welfare costs surged.
The 11.4 billion-pound ($19 billion) shortfall compared with a deficit of 130 million pounds a year earlier, the Office for National Statistics said in London today. The median of 17 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey was for a 7 billion-pound deficit.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown and opposition leader David Cameron are vying for the support of voters before a general election due by June by showing their determination to reduce borrowing without hitting key services. Brown today will seek to enshrine in law a commitment to halve the deficit in four years.
“There is no doubt that fiscal policy will have to be tightened ...
cici - 30 months ago
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